Petrificus Totalus and Paradoxes
by MagicMythsAndMortals
Summary: Hermione Granger is haunted by nightmares until a mysterious man appears to try to help. Over the years, they meet again and again, and danger follows in their wake. Disclaimer: I own neither Harry Potter or Doctor Who (or any characters from either). I did, however, create the Somniat and various minor characters.
1. Prologue

A whirring, wheezing sound filled the night air as a shape slowly materialized in strobe-light-like flashes. A blue, old-fashioned police public call box had landed in the middle of a small London street.

Two houses down, a small girl was fast asleep. Her bushy brown hair lay on her pillow as if she were underwater, and a shaft of moonlight shone down from her bedroom window. Her name was Hermione Granger, and her dreams were tormented by monsters.

Down on the street, the doors of the police box opened. Golden light shone out onto the pavement for a second as a figure slipped out. Then he closed the door, and it was dark. He looked ordinary, or, at least, he didn't look like anything special. He was in his late-30s-early-40s, and his black hair was cropped very close to his head.

There was a sadness in his dark eyes. A deep, horrible, all-consuming sadness that filled them and encompassed them. But his mouth was set resolutely, and no one in the universe could stop him. He had destroyed his people. Now, it was time to be the hero. His name was the Doctor.

When the Time War ended, he had flown as far away as possible. He had landed on planet Earth, and all he knew was that something was going to happen. Something big.

Hermione twisted and turned. Her covers wrapped around her in a tangled mess, and her eyes were squinted shut. A dim light pulsed at her window, and then the window slid open silently. The Doctor pulled himself into her room, and the branch he had been perching on snapped back to its original position. He made his way to the closet, whose door was perched open a sliver. A single, dimmed red eye peeked out. Then, it disappeared.

"Oh no, you don't!" the Doctor hissed to himself. He had a strong Northern accent, obvious even in a whisper. He swung open the door fully, and came face to face with...something. It had bat-ish wings with long, gleaming claws. Its head was wide and flat on top, and tapered down to a sharp chin. _Very_ sharp. Its skin was a marbled reddish-brown, stretched thin over spindly bones and a protruding stomach. And in its hand, it held a small device, rather like a transistor radio.

Around the same time he saw the "radio", the Doctor was hit with a horrible feeling. He saw in front of him burning buildings and running beings against a smoky, orange sky. He heard shrieking lasers and the cries of terrified victims. And then it ended, and he was curled up on the bedroom floor.

He looked up, and saw the creature twisting its thin lips into a smirk.

"That's a telepathic thought communicator, isn't it?" the Doctor asked. "Isn't it? You've been sending her her worst fears in her sleep, but why? She's just a human child! What could she do to you?"

The horrible feeling returned, and his vision went black. An ancient, gravely voice filled his head, pounding and reverberating.

_She is powerful. She will be great. She will use her powers to return our kingdom._

"What kingdom?" And then it dawned on him, and a look of surprise, hatred, and disgust filled the sharp lines of his face.

"You're the Somniat. You're going to haunt people's dreams, tell them what to do. And when they wake up, they won't remember it! You're going to try to take over this world, but you know what? It isn't going to happen! Because you made a very large mistake, and do you know what it was? You let me get in your way!"

The Somniat suddenly looked behind the Doctor, an expression of terror on his face. Hermione Granger was sitting up in bed, her eyes wide and staring. With a horrible wail, the Somniat looked to the ceiling and disappeared.

The Doctor looked from Hermione to where the Somniat was a moment ago and then back to Hermione. He looked stunned for a moment, then smiled. A huge, joyous grin, because something, _finally_, had turned out well.

"Of course", his muttered to himself. "A Somniat can't be seen by it's victim. Then it is no longer reality. It is only a dream. And he was the last one." The Doctor's face looked sad for a moment, but it passes as he remembered that there was a child who has just seen a strange man and a now-imaginary creature in her room. She was shrinking back into her sheets, her blanket pulled up to her chin, revealing wide, chocolate brown eyes fringed by long, thick lashes.

The Doctor hesitantly stepped forward, then halted to see if Hermione would shrink back any more. She didn't. Her eyes remained wide and curious. She wasn't scared as much as confused.

The Doctor knelt down at the foot of her bed.

"Hello," he said softly.

"Who are you?" Hermione asked. Her voice was soft and just a little bit pompous.

"Just a friend, passing through"

"But what's your _name__**," **_Hermione insisted.

"I'm the Doctor."

"Doctor _who_?"

"Just the Doctor. I'll be leaving now, because you seemed to have taken care of things. But I'm going to give you this ring, first. It will protect you."

"From what?"

The Doctor paused for a split second, then replied, "Monsters."

"Don't be daft, there's no such thing as monsters."

"How old are you again?" the Doctor asked, taken aback.

"I'm seven years old, I'm the smartest in my class, and I know there are no such thing as monsters. So, answer me. What will the ring protect me from? There was a creature in my closet. Will it protect me from things like that? And while we're on the topic, what was that creature? I'll take a scientific explanation, and a scientific explanation only."

The Doctor stared.

"Well?"

The Doctor coughed, then said, "The creature in your closet, it was from another world. From the beginning of the universe, in fact."

"But that's not possible. Nothing can live that long."

The Doctor ran his tongue over his teeth. He was about to argue that yes, something _can_ live that long, but he decided against it. And then he changed his mind. This girl was one of the most brilliant human children he has ever met. She deserved to know whatever she wanted to, because he could tell that she would use it. She wouldn't tell anyone. So he sat down, cross-legged, on Hermione's floor, the moonlight beaming onto him, and started to talk. He talked about time and space and universes and creatures. He talked about stars and Time Lords and a planet named Gallifrey. Hermione listened. And she believed.

As dawn broke, the Doctor stood up. "Well, I've got to go. Other worlds to save. Other people to meet."

He turned and walked toward the open window, but before he could climb out, Hermione spoke.

"Doctor, will I ever see you again?"

"Yes. Hermione Granger. You will." He ambled, long-limbed, out the window. A second later, he popped back up.

"Oh, and don't lose that ring! Seriously, it is imperative that you wear it. Goodbye!"

A moment later, a man stepped back into his box. He was still sad, but his heart was a bit lighter.

"Thank you, " he whispered, before he blinked out into the universe.


	2. A Spot Of Trouble In The Halls

Hermione Granger was curled up on her bed, reading. Cloudy light poured through her window, and her ceiling fan was whirring. Her eyes slid from one page to the next, faster than they should, but Hermione could understand every word. Well, usually she could. But not today. After a page or two more, she slammed the book shut and threw it to the foot of her bed, half growling-half sighing.

It was getting worse. She'd kept it hidden for almost five years now, but she had blown it today, for sure. Even her parents couldn't help her keep it a secret.

She had nearly screamed the first time she woke up floating almost three feet above her bed. That was when she was seven, and her parents burst in a millisecond after Hermione fell onto her sheets with a dull thud.

She also remembered - _very_ vividly - the day when she left Jimmy Callister stranded in a tree for a hour and a half when she was nine. He was on the swings at recess when he called Hermione a pompous, buck-toothed know-it-all. Hermione was furious, but she stalked away, knowing that Jimmy would easily win in a fight. Jimmy decided to continue the insults, but he made a mistake in jumping off the swing to follow her, for Hermione whipped around a moment later to see Jimmy, pale-faced and gasping with fear, holding onto the top branches of a tall tree for dear life. The teachers tried to coax him down, but he was deathly afraid of heights, and it took two fire fighters to get him back on the ground. Jimmy blamed it on Hermione, blubbering that she had used sorcery, but the teachers attributed this to shock, and sent him home early.

There had been many smaller incidents in between; making it rain on the neighbor's recently toilet-papered yard after their daughter insulted her best friend, and trying to explain to her teacher that the chalk picking itself up and correcting the teacher whenever she got a problem wrong was _not_, in any way, related to Hermione, even as she mouthed directions to it ("One hundred and eighty seven times three is five hundred sixty-one, not five hundred seventy eight"). There was also the time when she _swore_ the cat passing her by had asked her how her day was going.

Today, though, was worse. Much worse. She had been walking to science class, minding her own business, when Julia Adams and her posse came strutting up to her.

"Hey, look who it is, the teacher's pet," sneered Julia. Her group of friends giggled. Hermione just sighed and continued to walk.

"Don't ignore me," Julia said, and proceeded to knock Hermione's books right out of her hands. They went flying in all directions, and Hermione's heart sank as the covers tore off a couple of them. Julia's friends were laughing their heads off at this point. Hermione took a deep breath and turned around to face them, her books still scattered on the ground.

"You think you're so funny, don't you?" Her voice was cool and calm, but there was a deeper, deadly undertone. Her oppressors stopped laughing, amazed that the quiet, awkward know-it-all was standing up for herself.

"You do, don't you? You-" she looked directly at Julia's followers "-You're like her servants! You follow her blindly, laugh at her jokes, pick on the people she dislikes without a second thought. What's the point? It doesn't make the teachers like you, it doesn't make the student's like you, and it _certainly_ doesn't gain you any friends. You think you're sooooo popular, but all those people are merely afraid. What of, though, I haven't the faintest idea - you couldn't do much, could you?. Trust me, they would turn on you at the slightest provocation!" People were gathering around as Hermione's voice grew in volume. She turned to the growing crowd.

"All of you! You're like sheep, led to the slaughter!" She knew she was overreacting, she knew that it was quite possible she wasn't even making any sense, but she didn't care. The act of screaming at the people who had treated her like vermin for the first half-decade of her life was something that she had wanted to do for too long.

"Do you really think that hanging out with people like them will get you anywhere in life? Give it another five years and you'll still be rude bullies, with failing grades at that. Nobody likes a bully, and if any of you ever manage to get a job, don't tell me, because I might die of shock!" With that, she whipped back around, and all the lockers around her slammed. The lights flickered, and Hermione's books flew into her hands, knocking down Julia and her friends in the process. People screamed, and the principal of the school, Mr. Lennard, came bursting out into the hallway.

"What is going on here?!" he bellowed. Julia stood up shakily, almost in hysterics.

"It was her! Hermione Granger!" She pointed shakily at the now-terrified girl. "She - She's a witch!"

Mr. Lennardl responded, but Hermione didn't hear what he said. Her ears were ringing, and her stomach was clenching with fear. She could hear her heart beating aggressively in her chest.

"Excuse me, sir, but I'm going to have to ask you to lead your students into the gymnasium." A soft, persuasive voice edged its way into Hermione's ear. She turned to see a tall woman wearing long, emerald green robes speaking to Mr. Lennard. "I'm from Ace Electricity," she explained quickly. "Ms. Finch in Room 23 called about an electricity problem, so you'll have to clear the area while we take care of it."

"Um, yes, of course. Whatever you say," stuttered Mr. Lennard. He quickly strode back into his office, and the intercom crackled as his voice filled the halls. "All staff and students report to the gymnasium immediately; I repeat, all staff and students to the gymnasium. Thank you." The next moment, Mr. Lennard was back in the hallway, striding towards the gym with the rest of the school. Hermione started to follow, but the woman held her back.

"Take this, but don't open it here." The lady handed Hermione an envelope made of thick, aged parchment. The address said "Miss Hermione Granger, James Hobart Academy, The Hallway Outside Room Twenty-Three."

Hermione's brow furrowed, and she opened her mouth to speak, but the lady interrupted.

"I think you should go home now."

Hermione simply nodded, and went to gather her belongings.


	3. Contemplations

**Sorry I haven't updated in so long, and sorry this chapter is so short! Enjoy anyway!**

* * *

Now, looking to her right, Hermione saw the letter, lying open on her nightstand. The creases from the envelope were already smoothing out from multiple readings. She reached over and scanned the words for the umpteenth time. At the top of the page, "Hogwarts School of Witchcraft And Wizardry" was scrawled in a rich green ink, the same color of the words on the envelope. Below that was the actual letter, written in a neat, loopy cursive.

_Dear Miss Granger,_

_We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment._

_Term begins on 1 September. We await your owl by no later than 31 July._

_Yours sincerely,_

_Minerva McGonagall_

_Deputy Headmistress_

The next page consisted of a list of absurd things. _Where on earth do they expect me to find a book about the history of magic?_ she thought to herself. _It's not like beetle eyes are a common occurrence in London. And I bet there's not a shop within a hundred miles that sells wizard robes._

_I'm a logical person_, Hermione thought to herself. _Do they really expect me to believe this? _But she couldn't deny that it all made sense. The strange occurrences were magic, they said. Well, she couldn't think of any other explanation, and it's not like she didn't try.

And plus, after her experience with the Doctor, she was more open to anything. Hermione gazed at the silver ring that coiled around her finger. Pulling it off, she studied it closely. Its surface was covered with intricate circular designs, etched impossibly small. She found it strange that it still fit; it had when the Doctor first gave it to her half a decade ago, and it felt no tighter today.

The Doctor. He had opened up her world, told her of things beyond her wildest dreams, and then he left. He promised to return, but five years later, Hermione was still waiting. She still dreamed about him, sometimes. She would see running from giant robots, traveling through the stars, or simply talking, talking about nothing and everything. Once in a while, every couple months or so, Hermione would see something that shouldn't make sense. A star, all of a sudden blinking out. A person, disappearing in a flash of light. They were little reminders, reminders that what had happened so many years ago hadn't been a dream, reminders that she hadn't imagined it all.

As Hermione Granger sat contemplating on her bed, thinking about magic and time and space, she wished with all her heart that the Doctor would come back. Maybe, just maybe, he would know what to do.


End file.
